NYT: Donald Rumsfeld Should Go

There was a moment about a year ago, in the days of "Mission Accomplished," when Donald Rumsfeld looked like a brilliant tactician. American troops  the lean, mean fighting machine Mr. Rumsfeld assembled  swept into Baghdad with a speed that surprised even the most optimistic hawks. It was crystal clear that the Defense Department, not State and certainly not the United Nations, would control the start of nation-building. Mr. Rumsfeld, with his steely grin and tell-it-like-it-is press conferences, was the closest thing to a rock star the Bush cabinet would ever see.

That was then.

It is time now for Mr. Rumsfeld to go, and not only because he bears personal responsibility for the scandal of Abu Ghraib. That would certainly have been enough. The United States has been humiliated to a point where government officials could not release this year's international human rights report this week for fear of being scoffed at by the rest of the world. The reputation of its brave soldiers has been tarred, and the job of its diplomats made immeasurably harder because members of the American military tortured and humiliated Arab prisoners in ways guaranteed to inflame Muslim hearts everywhere. And this abuse was not an isolated event, as we know now and as Mr. Rumsfeld should have known, given the flood of complaints and reports directed to his office over the last year.

The world is waiting now for a sign that President Bush understands the seriousness of what has happened. It needs to be more than his repeated statements that he is sorry the rest of the world does not "understand the true nature and heart of America." Mr. Bush should start showing the state of his own heart by demanding the resignation of his secretary of defense.

This is far from a case of a fine cabinet official undone by the actions of a few obscure bad apples in the military police. Donald Rumsfeld has morphed, over the last two years, from a man of supreme confidence to arrogance, then to almost willful blindness. With the approval of the president, he sent American troops into a place whose nature and dangers he had apparently never bothered to examine.

We now know that no one with any power in the Defense Department had a clue about what the administration was getting the coalition forces into. Mr. Rumsfeld's blithe confidence that he could run his war on the cheap has also seriously harmed the Army and the National Guard.

This page has argued that the United States, having toppled Saddam Hussein, has an obligation to do everything it can to usher in a stable Iraqi government. But the country is not obliged to continue struggling through this quagmire with the secretary of defense who took us into the swamp. Mr. Rumsfeld's second in command, Paul Wolfowitz, is certainly not an acceptable replacement because he was one of the prime architects of the invasion strategy. It is long past time for a new team and new thinking at the Department of Defense.

The policies set in place allowed this to happen, are they not still holding people without any charges? Geneva convention? are we a democracy with rules or does George and the gang just do whatever they feel like? looking at this scandal you would think no one has any rights. whats more discusting is the policies coming down from George & Rumsfield and Ashcroft. These 3 have no problem trampling the Geneva convention,the Constituition and Bill of rights. Best way to handle this is to vote these power mongers out. I urge everyone to take a few moments and register to vote and excercise your freedom while you still have it. Our Democracy wasnt built on things like the patriot act or holding people without charging them or torture.

Using this logic a person who admitted in front of congress and again on the Dick Cavett show 1971 that they personally committed war crimes including the burning down of villages and the killing of women and children should not be able to run for president. For If Rumsfield did that you would be demanding his resignation. Proof of this is Rumsfield didn't even do a fraction of that and you are demanding his resignation.

Using this logic a person who admitted in front of congress and again on the Dick Cavett show 1971 that they personally committed war crimes including the burning down of villages and the killing of women and children should not be able to run for president. For If Rumsfield did that you would be demanding his resignation. Proof of this is Rumsfield didn't even do a fraction of that and you are demanding his resignation.

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Sly, have you ever read a transcript of the Cavett show from '71?
Kerry at no point has ever said that he engaged in any war crimes -- only that he had heard stories from other soldiers.

You have accused Kerry of personally being involved in atrocities. This time I am calling you on it. Either put up -- or get out.

"It is clear that our findings do not allow to conclude that what we were dealing with here in the case of Abu Ghraib was isolated acts of individual members of the coalition forces," he said. "What we have described amounts to a pattern, a broad system."

Sly, have you ever read a transcript of the Cavett show from '71?
Kerry at no point has ever said that he engaged in any war crimes -- only that he had heard stories from other soldiers.

You have accused Kerry of personally being involved in atrocities. This time I am calling you on it. Either put up -- or get out.

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Hannity played it on his show so I heard it from Kerry's mouth. He said "Yes I like others committed war crimes, burning homes of villagers, firing a (either a m-50 or 50 cal) in free fire zones." and allot of other stuff.

I hear from another forum they also played the thing on c-span but I can't find a link to it. Lots of places are talking about it but they didn't leave the video online However here is the part of the transcript I'm talking about.

Quote

Appearing on the April 18, 1971, edition of NBC's "Meet the Press," John Kerry accused himself of committing what he described as "atrocities," including the burning of Vietnamese villages. Host Tim Russert replayed the excerpt last Sunday on "Meet the Press" while interviewing Kerry, who is now the Democratic presidential candidate.

"There are all kinds of atrocities and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free-fire zones," Kerry said on the 1971 program. ". . . I took part in search-and-destroy missions, in the burning of villages. All of this is contrary to the laws of warfare. All of this is contrary to the Geneva Conventions and all of this ordered as a matter of written established policy by the government of the United States from the top down. And I believe that the men who designed these, the men who designed the free-fire zone, the men who ordered us, the men who signed off the air raid strike areas, I think these men, by the letter of the law, the same letter of the law that tried Lt. Calley, are war criminals."

Sly, have you ever read a transcript of the Cavett show from '71?
Kerry at no point has ever said that he engaged in any war crimes -- only that he had heard stories from other soldiers.

You have accused Kerry of personally being involved in atrocities. This time I am calling you on it. Either put up -- or get out.

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Actually, that's not quite accurate. Kerry said he was involved in activities in Vietnam that he learned later were violations of the Hague and Geneva conventions. This is why he turned against the war. The accusation that he admitted to having killed women and children is of course a scurrilous lie perpetuated by people with all of the morals and ethics of small forest creatures.

Actually, that's not quite accurate. Kerry said he was involved in activities in Vietnam that he learned later were violations of the Hague and Geneva conventions. This is why he turned against the war. The accusation that he admitted to having killed women and children is of course a scurrilous lie perpetuated by people with all of the morals and ethics of small forest creatures.

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They played the video on tv on both Hannity (which I myself saw) and on C-span and he said these words with his own mouth. They would've had to of had a look alike who had his voice as part of his conspiracy to make your statement truthful.

"I personally didn't see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I did take part in harassment and interdiction fire, I did take part in search-and-destroy missions in which the houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground.

For those of us around when Kerry and the VVAW were telling the stories of the war they fought in, we remember what they said. Were there war crimes in Vietnam? Absolutely. The tactics that Kerry and others talked about, free fire zones and the burning of villages, were indeed examples of war crimes. The true perpetrators of those crimes were the generals who drew up the tactics and the politicians who sanctioned them. However, what Kerry talked about did not cover the true atrocities of the War. For that one has to recall My Lai, the Tiger Force, the Phoenix program, the carpet bombing campaigns, the internment of prisoners in Tiger cages, etc., etc. The fact that the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong soldiers also engaged in criminal tactics does not relieve us of the responsibility of what happened anymore than Saddam's crimes relieve us of the torture of Iraqis. What Kerry did in coming home and fighting against the war was as important and as heroic as what he did there. Sly and his right-wing crazy links cannot rewrite the history of Vietnam, even if they can't accept its lessons.

Yesterday Rumsfeld stated publicly that he knew about the abuses, via extensive briefings and reports from his own department and outside agencies like the Red Cross, since January but did little to rectify the situation or alert Bush to the gravity of the situation because he hadn't seen the actual photographs.

Is he seriously claiming that he does not understand concepts expressed in textual form?!! That being the case, perhaps he needs to be briefed in thumbnail sketches, or maybe cartoon format such as a story-board, in future. With these visual aids maybe he will be better placed to assess the gravity of events!

He also appeared eager to admit that these pictures were evidence of serious abuse which happened on his watch, and the buck stopped with him. By extension, he should resign. It seems to me there is absolutely no point admitting full liability if you are not prepared make the consequential sacrifice - without the offer of resignation the words and sentiment are utterly meaningless.

But as I said earlier, I rather hope he remains. Bush has already predictably rewarded his fall guy with his full support. What a pair these will make at election time - the abuser-in-chief and the organ grinder's monkey.

These actions weren't of just a few rogue soldiers. This was systematic.

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I never understand why people are surprised by behavior of military personnel. For Heavens sake they are trained to kill human beings! Isn't that the purpose of the military?

There is a reason people come back from war with PTSD. THe human psyche is not intended to cope with mass murder, no matter how we justify it. KIling others is not part of our psychological makeup. We have no real way of coping with it so our system goes into a shut down. That shut down is what allows people to do things like what was done. If you can justify murder certainly you can justify humiliating people. I mean, at least we aren't killing them, right? Isn't that why someone said it wasn't "as bad" as the Nazi Death camps? Because we weren't kiling them.

Yesterday Rumsfeld stated publicly that he knew about the abuses, via extensive briefings and reports from his own department and outside agencies like the Red Cross, since January but did little to rectify the situation or alert Bush to the gravity of the situation because he hadn't seen the actual photographs.

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and the telling part is what you emphasized. the only reason this is prominent is because of the photographs. short of those, it's still all be rumor and the WH would be making no statements about it.

it's very hard for me to believe that this was not told to bush. i think it was and rumsfeld is simply "taking the fall" for it. of course, at this point, he's not really taking the fall, since there are apparently no consequences for him.

No, you aren't. I wonder how the "few bad apples" theory can survive the clear reality that abuses were documented by the ICRC throughout last year, and even more importantly, the White House and the Pentagon were informed.

WASHINGTON  The international Red Cross documented cases of severe mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners far more numerous and far earlier than previously was known, U.S. and Red Cross officials said Friday.

The Red Cross repeatedly warned the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department in confidential reports and closed-door meetings since last spring that U.S. troops were abusing inmates at various military-run prisons in Iraq.

The now-infamous photos of U.S. military police abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib were taken in November, and a classified report of the Pentagon investigation largely focused on incidents at Abu Ghraib beginning in October.

"The elements we found were tantamount to torture," Pierre Kraehenbuehl, operations director for the Swiss-based International Committee of the Red Cross, told reporters in Geneva. "They were clearly incidents of degrading and inhuman treatment."

He said the ICRC investigations showed "a pattern, a broad system" rather than "isolated acts of individual members of the coalition forces."

Kraehenbuehl said the "concerns were regularly brought to the attention" of the U.S.-led coalition "throughout 2003."

He said the ICRC communicated "orally and in writing" with U.S. officials. The ICRC also had expressed concern to British authorities about inmates in British detention camps in Iraq, Kraehenbuehl said.

The Red Cross said Friday that it had been warning of prisoner abuse in Iraq since shortly after the U.S.-led invasion. U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer said he first became aware of the allegations in January.

Is he seriously claiming that he does not understand concepts expressed in textual form?!! That being the case, perhaps he needs to be briefed in thumbnail sketches, or maybe cartoon format such as a story-board, in future. With these visual aids maybe he will be better placed to assess the gravity of events!

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LOL, someone should show him pictures of Iraq without any WMDs in them...

This whole thing is over blown. This whole episode was caused by a few bad apples -- in the White House.

Actually, the techniques used in Iraq were certainly "policy". This article that appeared today is from the British angle -- but I don't think there would be much variation on the US side.

UK forces taught torture methods

David Leigh
Saturday May 8, 2004
The Guardian

The sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison was not an invention of maverick guards, but part of a system of ill-treatment and degradation used by special forces soldiers that is now being disseminated among ordinary troops and contractors who do not know what they are doing, according to British military sources.

The techniques devised in the system, called R2I - resistance to interrogation - match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.

One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: "It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn't know what they were doing."

He said British and US military intelligence soldiers were trained in these techniques, which were taught at the joint services interrogation centre in Ashford, Kent, now transferred to the former US base at Chicksands.

"There is a reservoir of knowledge about these interrogation techniques which is retained by former special forces soldiers who are being rehired as private contractors in Iraq. Contractors are bringing in their old friends".

Using sexual jibes and degradation, along with stripping naked, is one of the methods taught on both sides of the Atlantic under the slogan "prolong the shock of capture", he said.

Female guards were used to taunt male prisoners sexually and at British training sessions when female candidates were undergoing resistance training they would be subject to lesbian jibes. . .

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